This invention relates generally to electronic devices, and more particularly to computing device enclosures and thermal management systems for computing devices.
Many types of conventional computers consist of a one or more circuit boards housed with an enclosure or case. ATX and microATX represent some conventional standard case sizes. A few conventional case designs incorporate two side-by side compartments or sometimes vertically stacked compartments. In many conventional designs, thermal management is provided by a heat sink or spreader and a cooling fan. However, some conventional computers generate more heat than can be adequately managed by air flow alone. These designs often resort to a liquid cooling system.
Several technical issues are presented by conventional liquid cooling and case designs. Many conventional liquid cooling systems employ multiple radiators. The placement of these multiple radiators is normally driven by whatever the prevailing standard enclosure form factors are, such as ATX/microATX, etc. These standard form factors do not allow the most efficient use of space. In addition, typical conventional liquid cooling systems using standard components tend to be relatively large and do not allow for much customization or implementation of unique form factors. Some conventional dual compartment computer cases tend to draw air passed first through, and thus preheated by, one compartment and into the second compartment that houses the liquid cooling radiators. This preheating reduces the efficacy of the radiator.
Many current liquid cooling computer systems encompass multiple cold plates which are mounted to various high power devices within the system. This leads to higher system complexity and size since these various cold plates must be routed together via a tubing network within the system. Typically, the cold plates must be interconnected and routed into a radiator for the heat to be removed from the system. Since each cold plate has one inlet and one outlet for the fluid, this requires more hardware and interconnection between each cold plate (tubing, fitting, etc.). These networks of cold plates are not optimized to fit within a system enclosure and therefore leads to wasted space and greater assembly complexity within the system enclosure.
The present invention is directed to overcoming or reducing the effects of one or more of the foregoing disadvantages, among others.